For former stars, a swing back to the separation of singer and songwriter made British pop a land of second chances. 90s and 00s number ones are sprinkled with semi-familiar names – Cathy Dennis, Guy Chambers, and now Andy McLuskey, who went further than most. A conceptualist with OMD, and a believer in electronic pop, his involvement with Atomic Kitten merged the two. Under his management, the Kittens would be a tween-friendly girl group but also a pragmatic – cynical, even – application of what he’d learned in two decades in pop.
This explains why in interviews, McCluskey seemed to relish his svengali role, talking about his discovery of Kerry Katona. She had “Marilyn Monroe syndrome”, McCluskey explained, defined as “you’re gorgeous but you don’t know it”. It’s not hard to read traces of this condescension into the product. The early Atomic Kitten singles – built to push the brassy, extrovert Katona upfront – sound to me like a songwriter deliberately aiming for bubblegum but keen for us to understand that’s what he’s doing. “Right Now”, “See Ya!”, “I Want Your Love” – these were fizzy, bright, entertaining pop singles, but knowing with it, deliberately flat and frothy.
McCluskey identified Katona as a natural star, but he wouldn’t be the one to get her there. His dayglo approach flopped – four singles in, Atomic Kitten were floundering, and Katona quit. In fairness to McCluskey, nobody else was having better luck. His group were part of a third generation of post-Spice acts whose every gimmick – Hepburn’s pop-rock stylings, Sugababes’ teenaged sulkiness, Girls@Play’s fancy-dress wardrobe – seemed set to fail. One of the reasons I was so seduced by American R&B at this point was how moribund British pop and rock both felt, drifting into a state of inertia, running on the fumes of mid-90s successes.
“Whole Again” was one last shot at a hit before the Atomic Kitten project shuttered. Too late for Katona – the single was re-recorded with new Kitten Jenny Frost – it worked. It more than worked. In a chart bobbing with one-week wonders, “Whole Again” was omnipresent, a month-long smash. It was ubiquitous enough and simple enough to earn a filthy pub or playground version – “you can kiss my…” And that simplicity – the song’s unadorned instrumentation, straightforward performance, and universal scenario – were the centre of its appeal.
It’s a vindication of the McClusky approach, in one sense. It’s as deliberately plain, as dimensionless, as any of the in-your-face bubblegum on the group’s earlier singles. But applied to a ballad there’s no trace of archness. At the same time, this doesn’t feel to me like a “Back For Good”, a record of ambition whose songwriter is shooting for the all-time lists. “Whole Again” has one obviously retro move – its spoken-word middle eight – but the rest of it is a collection of simple ideas pleasantly arranged. No showboating – the emphases on “my friends make me smile / but only for a while” is as close as it gets to letting the pain show. No tricks in the arrangement, which sticks firmly to the effective combination of strolling beat and one-note string crescendos. No emotional resolution. The core of “Whole Again” is a big, likeable chorus hook, and it’s happy sticking with that, thank you.
In the context of Westlife – so blustering – or J-Lo – so maximal – or even Destiny’s Child – so aggressive – the modesty of “Whole Again” works, and found a big, satisfied, audience. The downside of the approach is obvious – this is a nice record, a refreshing record, but not an exciting record. The label, of course, was delighted. Their failures were suddenly the country’s most famous girl group. “We’ve got a formula now and it works,” was how McCluskey, squeezed out after his greatest success, put it, “We want Whole Again, Whole Again and more fucking Whole Again”. As a one-off, “Whole Again” was a palate cleanser. Applied as a formula, it was deadening. In the late 90s comedy show Goodness Gracious Me, the most famous sketch involves a bunch of British Asians pouring drunkenly into a restaurant. They demand – in an inversion of the boozed-up white Brit’s macho demand for vindaloos and phals – that the staff bring them “an English”, the blandest item on the menu. The Spice era was over. Bring on the Spiceless Girls.
Score: 6
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One of the most proportionally mesmerising videos ever, compared to the allure of the song.
Obviously Post-McCluskey Atomic Kitten would prove to be a lot less fun than their first incarnation despite the significantly escalated success, but I do think this is a magnificent pop song. The production is a bit bontempi, and the vocals undistinguished, but the actual song could be a Bacharach/David standard. One of those wonderfully unexpected shots of quality that cuts through the context of its creation almost entirely. One day, a soul singer will cover this and it’ll get the re-evaluation it deserves.
10
P.S. All those playground renditions were dreadful.
I suppose McCluskey had trodden a variant of these paths before – after obtaining (perhaps in retrospect astonishing) commercial success with electronic music that was, in places, avant garde, and certainly futuristic – and then, admittedly, pushing the envelope just a bit too far on the glorious “Dazzle Ships” – sinking back into, well, not quite commercial complacency (not least as the ensuing records, mostly, did not sell that well), then at least eschewing experimentation – although mid-80s OMD tracks like “Secret” or “So in Love” or “If You Leave”, even “Dreaming” still have an imprint of quality about them….
….as does this, up to a point. It’s not a classic by any measure, it’s too insubstantial for that – it lacks the oomph or (err…) x factor – both in the tune and the nature of the performance. It’s all a bit ordinary, unchallenging, middle-of-the-road, safe. Daytime radio fodder, but not of the lowest calibre. (5) seems about right.
The video! They all look like they’re on sedatives and have been given that beigey-gold, greasy-tan S Club look. I’m not sure about Marilyn Monroe, but Kerry was certainly the most distinctive Kitten and they looked superbland without her.
The song is something else again, though. In my memory I had it down as much earlier, possibly because of that basic, repetitive ’98 drum loop; it feels like a mature variant on the Brit bubblegum of Billie, B*witched et al, an era-closing single in the vein of (but nowhere near as unusual as) the Shangri La’s Past Present & Future – spoken part and all.
Not exciting, agreed, but certainly yearning. I’m very fond of it.
Viewed purely in chart terms Limp Bizkit had already raised eyebrows by managing a second week but nothing prepared anybody for what happened here.
As Tom has already noted, Whole Again was Atomic Kitten’s last shot at a big hit before being dropped and I believe the record company took some persuading to give them that chance but the rest, as the cliche goes, is history. To an extent there were precedents; Goodnight Girl by Wet Wet Wet was a surprise chart topping follow up to several flop singles (at a similar time of year as well) but nobody thought it could happen in the `instant` chart of the early 2000s.
Of course, once Whole Again seized the top spot there was suddenly no stopping it. They had to fight a close chart battle with Wheatus for a second week and a quiet week for new releases afterwards gifted them a third (Wheatus held two and Jakkata’s American Beauty theme sampling dance record was the highest entry at three). However commentators had noted that not only was Whole Again holding the top spot but it was increasing its sales week on week.
The following week saw Outkast release their massive American hit Ms Jackson to much anticipation and were generally expected to sweep to number one; when Mark Goodier played Outkast at number two on Sunday it was the biggest shock chart watchers had enjoyed for a long time. With another increased sale Whole Again duly became the first four weeker since I Have A Dream/ Seasons In The Sun which had the benefit of two dead January weeks; discount that and the prior four (plus) weeker was Cher’s Believe almost two and half years previously. It could and should be added that Whole Again increased its sales for a fifth week and would have held number one in most normal circumstances. Indeed if not for a run of three hugely hyped bunnies in as many weeks we’d be talking an eight weeker here; it wasn’t until its ninth chart week that Whole Again finally shot its bolt.
So what was it about Whole Again that caught the public imagination? The rags to riches narrative of a band about to be dropped and a number one single so nearly missed did help. But I think the song appealed as a slow burner that sounded a bit thin and inconsequential on a first listen but grew on you each subsequent play. Of course Atomic Kitten couldn’t quite follow it; their two bunnies to come are covers and they fell apart messily but after the revolving door of number ones in 2000 Whole Again, the little record that could, restored everyone’s faith in the charts.
So what of the non bunnies? It’s a shame we don’t get to discuss Teenage Dirtbag here, particularly so close to Rollin’. It was the biggest selling non chart topper of the year (ninth overall) and is probably the biggest selling alternative rock single of the era. It has also endured incredibly well given that it’s a send up not just of its genre but also of its audience. Maybe it proves that teenage dirtbags do have a sense of irony (and our hero does of course get the girl – and the Iron Maiden tickets).
Rollin’ got barged aside by a trio of new entries and with no Whole Again U2 would have made it two from two with Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, their eulogy for Michael Hutchence. I’ve only just seen that Last Resort by Papa Roach was actually at three a week later behind Whole Again and Teenage Dirtbag – I thought this came a bit earlier but was obviously mistaken. Amazingly with Rollin’ holding on at four (U2 and Mya’s long forgotten Case Of The Ex falling back) with no Whole Again we would have had a nu metal/ pop punk top three. Also worth mentioning from Whole Again’s fourth week; Melanie B at five (an improvement on Word Up but not the massive hit she desperately needed) and A1 breaking their number one run a place below.
You forgot the most risible of those post-Spice groups, Tom – Girl Thing! Does anyone else remember…? (No, thought not.)
@6 I remember Girl Thing. They were all fart and no shit.
`Hold your body nearer, it’s the end of an era`. Rather depressing how that sticks in my head fifteen years on. Weren’t they managed by a then relatively unknown Simon Cowell? I remember them saying in interview with TOTP magazine, `Everybody knows girls are better than boys` – can you imagine what we’d say about a male pop star saying the opposite?
Girl Thing – Ecclesiastes 6:4
And further into terra incognita for me. Atomic Kitten didn’t get the token one or two US hits that most post-Spice UK/Ireland girl groups and boy bands had until now. Apparently there was a US release planned and a new video made, but 9/11 ended that according to Wiki. It’s amazing what could be blamed on 9/11 at the time…
Coming to this cold, I was hoping it would be another “Pure Shores”-type revelation. Of course it wasn’t – not even close. But I will say after three or four listens now it’s grown on me a bit. It seems appropriate that it was a slow burning hit – good thing it was released in a sales lull as it probably would have gotten lost in the crowd otherwise. The low budget video is not bad either, even though it seems specially formulated to make it difficult to tell the girls apart (there are three of them, right?). Overall, Tom’s 6/10 seems about right.
I wasn’t aware of the McCluskey connection when I was listening to this recently, nor did it prompt me to check out their earlier singles. This put me in mind of the Zara and Primark business model where they will take a close look at the new seasons fashions and quickly make a cheaper version to be sold to a mass audience. ‘Whole Again’ sounds to my ears like a cut-price version of All Saints, complete with spoken section and retro drum pattern. It’s pleasant and competent but lacking anything original that makes it stick in the memory.
Re 5: cheers for that, nice stats – the nu metal/pop punk Top 3 (minus AK) is a shock. I don’t think I’ve knowingly heard Papa Roach.
Teenage Dirtbag made it onto Nigella Lawson’s Desert Island Discs.
Did Kerry Katona rejoin after they hit big then? Or is she an anti-Pete Best, cursed to suffer in public rather than brood in obscurity?
Kerry didn’t rejoin until long after their commercial fortunes had waned.
It’s worth noting that in addition to saving them in the UK, Whole Again broke them all over Europe and around the world. Some chart positions:
#1 Germany
#1 Austria
#1 New Zealand
#2 Switzerland
#2 Australia
#4 Belgium
#4 Sweden
None of their previous singles had any appeal outside the UK & Ireland, so this was definitely a crossover success.
McClusky did say in some eighties interviews that OMD wasn’t something he had to do – that he could write big pop hits if he really wanted to, but chose to do other things he found more fulfilling and interesting.
“Yeah, right,” I thought. Then came Atomic Kitten, evidence that he obviously meant it. The signs were there all along, I suppose. OMD wrote some staggeringly good songs, and had a pop suss that was somewhat undermined by their rather bland presentation. OMD could put huge, haunting hooks in their songs – “So In Love” and “Forever Live And Die” being but two examples – or deliver chilling synth pop which was, nonetheless, a lot more detailed and fleshed out than a lot of the minimal approaches of the day. “Enola Gay” had a lot more flourishes and embellishments than Depeche Mode or the Human League would have bothered with (at first), for example, meaning a song named after the plane which dropped the bomb on Horishima seemed more intricate and pretty than “Love Action”.
“Whole Again”, obviously, doesn’t push its luck in such a way. It’s McClusky jobbing. But still, it sounds like it must have come from the pen of a wealthy Transatlantic songwriting team, and it’s very well-written – I never have any urges to listen to the track, but when I do hear it, I find myself admiring the fact he got from “Electricity” to this (and via “Dazzle Ships”). I can’t think of many other examples of that kind of successful leap.
I thought Atomic Kitten phase 1 were just about ok. ‘Right Now’ is good enough to escape its disco-homage straightjacket and achieve some sort of pop immortality, ‘See Ya’ is a bit of a formulaic retread, not terrible for it though, ‘I Want Your Love’ is a frankenstein’s monster of a song, constantly fighting against an intrusive sample which doesn’t fit with anything else – but for all that it’s interesting enough to work. ‘Follow Me’ is almost entirely befeft of ideas, and it’s understandable that it flopped.
Whole Again marks the start of phase 2, and the end of my interest in the group. Jlucas at #2 is right that it sounds like a Bacharach/David song, but I’d say that’s because it sounds like Andy McCluskey has constructed it from non-copyright-infringing paraphrases of various Bacharach/David standards – the first verse, for example, is almost but not quite the first verse of ‘Walk On By’. I find this so distracting that I’m not really able to enjoy it at all. The “mature” approach presented here along with the bland beigey-gold look spotted by Wichitalinman at #4 was something of an excitement vacuum, and while Kerry Katona’s voice wasn’t particularly distinctive, she did look like a star of sorts, something they really missed in the next few years.
2001/2002 was, of course, their commercial peak, indicating once more that I and the record-buying public now had some fundamental differences in what we wanted from our pop music. 3.
I have a soft spot for this: it was number 1 the first time I visited London, and I saw Atomic Kitten perform at G.A.Y. during that visit. They seemed like a group that would have no chance in America.
#8 “can you imagine what we’d say about a male pop star saying the opposite?” Well, yes, but then it would be quite a different proposition – the structure of sexism/patriarchy would make it quite sinister. This is quite harmless boy-baiting.
Another great review, Tom! (perhaps worth noting that Jenny Frost’s re-recording was on the re-released album and the re-shot video, but that the version on the CD single and at the top of the charts was definitely Kerry! She has mentioned that at the time it was like there were four members in the band. I also think she quit primarily because she was expecting a baby with Briyan Westlife, rather than the band’s falling fortunes)
Given that the two AK bunnies are cover versions (and both of number one songs already written about in Popular), now seems as good time as any to look at the rest of their discography.
“‘We want Whole Again, Whole Again and more fucking Whole Again’. As a one-off, “Whole Again” was a palate cleanser. Applied as a formula, it was deadening.”
Too right. Along with first cover-bunny (and to a lesser extent, the second, which had a bit more pep to it) the following songs all use variations of Whole Again’s basic drum beat: Follow Me (which had preceded Whole Again), You Are, It’s OK, The Last Goodbye, Love Doesn’t Have to Hurt and If You Come to Me.
It’s OK! is the best of the bunch: a charming, summery, Stargate number. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0debAXDUmpc
As much as I easily recognise “Whole Again”, I find anything else by Atomic Kitten absolutely impossible to recall. Two bunnied covers you say? Not a scooby!
I’m still scratching my head over Andy McCluskey becoming some kind of pop Svengali, but it’s only for the same rockist reasons I railed against Feargal Sharkey becoming a corporate stooge. So be it. You can’t be William Morris today and be a wallpaper salesman tomorrow? But of course you can, and be a roaring success at both.
WA is pleasant, but vanilla (essence, not seed pod). 6 is about right.
No, Vanilla were 1998.
I guess “sticking to the formula” was in hope or expectation that the AK could become the female Westlife, but the problem there is that girl groups don’t generate that same sense of “loyalty” that the boy bands do (or, at least, that one).
A few years ago a friend of mine went for a modelling audition at a place called the H Bar in Liverpool. The single letter name was the giveaway – Natasha Hamilton had opened this bar with the cash from her time as an atomic kitten. The H Bar was aimed at footballers and the Merseyside glitterati – Within a year it was frequented by mobsters and sundry lowlife, and it closed. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
‘Whole Again’ is perfectly agreeable and deserved to go to number one, but it’s clearly a mediocre group getting it right, just this once.
My abiding memory of the phenomenon of the Kittens was one audition for X-Factor, where some girl group auditioning had said “We don’t just want to be another Atomic Kitten” at which Simon shuddered and said “Well, that’s the last thing I want.. Louis?” and Louis replied “no, me neither”..
The cover reminds me of AK’s casual ‘uniform’, looking directly influenced by All Saints although feeling less contrived and lazy with the latter.
I recall frustration at the success of this and AK in general while Sugababes just seemed so much better but struggled for certain reasons. At that point, as with Kelis back then it felt like both were being unjustly ignored and misunderstood and the Dumper beckoned. But eventually…
“Whole Again” was helped to the top by a combination of the song itself, a lot of goodwill & a well-judged video.
I sensed at the time there was a lot of goodwill in the pop industry for Atomic Kitten to succeed – maybe that was due to their force of personality and looks,to Andy McClusky or the fact that so many of their rival pop acts were devoid of charm. Their second and third hits did ok but were forgettable froth… Whole Again built on the promise of their debut single over a year earlier.
Furthermore, the video broke the track. I got Sky Digital in January 2001 & on MTV permanent rotation at the time were J-Lo, Mel B and this… And Whole Again never seemed to go away (well, not until Shaggy took it’s crown on the perma-playlist). The original video and single both featured Kerry, though both were remade later to feature Jenny Frost – but this track was a showcase for the vocals of Natasha Hamilton.
Re: Wheatus – I can confirm that amongst the people I know in their early 20s, Teenage Dirtbag is an anthem but, alas, in the true Americanised ways of that age group most of the irony didn’t
translate….
Sugababes’ video for Overload is quite similar to Whole Again’s.
It puzzles me that they waited until five singles deep to unleash this. Who at the record label thought ‘Follow Me’ was a safer bet?
The story goes they were actually dropped by the label but 24 hours later someone managed to convince the label to give them one last shot. I actually don’t think there was all that much goodwill towards them – if anything I think the increased week-on-week sales reflect that the song had to build momentum quite organically. I suspect it didn’t initially get a great deal more radio play than their previous singles, until the demand became obvious.
‘Whole Again’ strikes me as a somewhat straightened knock-off of ‘Never Ever’ (I think that this is what lonepilgrim@#10 was getting at too), hence a good but not great #1 (All Saints have really grown on me thanks to Popular). I guess I’d say that ‘Atomic Kitten’ is one of the great silly/flirtsy pop-group names (up there with things like ‘Haircut 100’ and ‘Atari Teenage Riot’ and ‘Arctic Monkeys’) so it’s gratifying that they did get a #1… I think the the plainness of the lyric effectively plays off/balances the flighty group-name and is, I suspect, part of the reason for WA’s success:
6
In one respect the band name was genius – they were apparently hugely popular in Japan.
They were initially The Automatic Kittens, which doesn’t flow quite so well.
4 weeks? Good lord. This has got a certain charm to it, that church organ that accompanies the opening verse gives it a quite hymnal feel which I like, but it’s ‘bontempi’ feel overcomes it for me and sounds almost like a demo in parts to me.
I can see its vague similarity with the early 60’s girl groups but it’s never brave enough to go as dark as many of those records. ‘I can never go home again’, anyone?
Katona became a Heat Magazine, ITV 2 shaped embarrassment didn’t she? I seem to recall her making a fool of herself on This Morning or something. Frost I liked much more, i probably would’ve asked her for a coffee or something if I vaguely knew her. Katona I’d have given a more than wide berth.
The best of an Average bunch where AK singles are concerned. A 6 seems fair and correct.
As to their name, why not “Atomic Kittens” I wonder (but not very much)
#31: Katona suffers from bipolar disorder – unluckily for her, the whole country saw her struggling through a very bad patch and hasn’t let her forget it.
I quite liked the early singles. This one? Not really – it’s just a bit bland.
Unfortunately, due to work, I’ve had to follow far too much of the Kerry Katona saga, although in my mind it just merges into any number of other minor celeb life-gone-wrong stories. It obviously doesn’t help anyone to live out their problems in public.
While I bought the first, Kerry Katona version of the Right Now album, it wasn’t because of this (it was Right Now, I Want Your Love, and what I suspect might be a limited edition Japanese exclusive (#29 was right) version of Cradle – a song off their first album later repackaged for their farewell). Bye Now and Strangers are infinitely better heartbreakers than Whole Again, which is pretty much pure beige. 4.
Seemingly deliberately positioned as the anti-Sugababes (#26: wrong way round, it’s Whole Again that’s similar to Overload), the Kittens always seemed more bouncy and upbeat than the always-at-each-other’s-throats Babes, although more discussion of them will surely come in due course (sadly without Siobhan in tow by then).
I’m glad to say that any irony in Teenage Dirtbag has gone over my head – I think it’s straightforwardly wonderful. Just as with its its forbear Pretty Woman, the bit where he gets his girl chokes me up every time.
No irony in Whole Again either, and not that much fun.
@33 yes KK is if anything a heroic figure in her struggles to have a decent life in the face of terrible odds (horrific childhood, mental illness, abusive partners) and doesn’t deserve to have shitbags like Frankie Boyle on her case the whole time.
John Lydon was a huge fan of hers during their time in the celebrity jungle, so she’s alright with me.
Seems as good a place as any to point out how great Snog, Marry, Avoid was when Jenny Frost did it – a show I would never have guessed I would like.
And how poor it is now.
#6: I also remember Girl Thing. In fact I remember far more about them than anyone really should do. They included Jodi Albert who went on to appear in one of the soaps (Corrie?) and said in an interview that she was going to be ‘bigger than Posh Spice’.
They were indeed managed by Simon Cowell who stated with absolute confidence that the next big thing would be his new girl band. Er, nought out of two then.
Girl Thing pretty much epitomise the limits of Simon Cowell’s understanding of pop music for me. He’s on safe ground playing to the pop-as-basket spend crowd, but any time he ventures beyond that comfort zone the reek of bullshit is so strong even his target audience of 7-13 year olds can smell it from a mile off.
There really were so many failed Girl Groups either shooting for the Spice Girls or All Saints fanbase around this time though. Rivalled only by the parade of Britney clones.
The All Saints knock-offs generally had better material. I remember Made In London were hyped to the high heavens with the actually quite good ‘Dirty Water’, but the whole thing felt very contrived (which of course it was).
Then there were Hepburn and Madasun who scored a handful of top twenty hits each. I still think ‘I Quit’ was great, but Jamie Benson’s voice didn’t really lend itself to anything that wasn’t that song.
Thunderbugs, SuperSister, Girls@Play… it really does go on and on.
And of course Precious, initially formed for the Eurovision Song Contest but making an admirable if doomed stab at keeping it going with the fabulous Baby One More Time knock-off ‘Rewind’, and gave Jenny Frost her first break.
Just throwing my contribution to the failed girl groups topic with 21st Century Girls, whose eponymous debut single set out their USP: “guitars and all that make up.” Possibly the only post-Shampoo pop group to dent the charts in the late nineties…
Also, along with the original line-up of Atomic Kitten, Girl Thing were brought back from the dead to perform on The Big Reunion. According to the show, major claim to fame, aside from being Cowell’s formative flop, was being big in Japan (natch). Also, that their slated third single, before being dropped, was stolen from them (one GT’s backing vocals were allegedly kept in the other band’s version) and eventually became a soon-to-be-dis’cussed bunny for an entirely different bunch of popstars…
As for Whole Again, the song makes me smile. But only for a while. 6
If I recall 21st Century Girls were Simon Fuller’s attempt to repeat the trick he’d achieved with the Spice Girls. As it was I believe Hepburn stole their thunder by becoming the first `girls with guitars` group out of the traps and it was eventually Thunderbugs who charted highest. Where the 21st Century Girls project arguably failed was in having a theme song constructed around the concept while their rivals at least had a proper song to sing.
It’s well worth noting that Sugababes attracted rave reviews in the serious mainstream press, well above anything even All Saints (probably the most highly regarded pop act critically) achieved. At the point where Whole Again was number one they hadn’t taken off quite as strongly as people hoped and internal band tension was already taking its toll – we’ve still got over a year before they gained their second lease of life.
Re38: Jodi Albert was in Hollyoaks, a show whose primary purpose seems to be to maintain a steady churn of attractive-but-uninteresting fodder for celeb magazines and reality shows.
Re37: I don’t think they’re making S, M, A? anymore, but of course with today’s TV, old episodes are sure to be circulation. Definitely only watchable in the Jenny Frost era. Not sure about the politics of the show, though: all that makeunder stuff could be read as ‘stop being so vulgar, common and trashy.’
A first listen for me, and I like it: it has a spark that the last few number ones hadn’t. No desire to hear the rehashes that apparently followed, but this is easily a 6, maybe even a 7. I agree with Swanstep, too, that it’s one of the great pop band names. Reminds me of Transvision Vamp: killer name, one or two decent songs.
Someone who was in my year at school was the most recent host of Snog Marry Avoid. True.
Re37/43: Snog, Marry, Avoid? was trash TV for puritans, in a way.
The peak of Katona baiting must have been when I stopped reading Popbitch/Holy Moly. It really was bizarrely and pointlessly vicious. I swear when I started reading Popbitch it was nonsense along the lines of ‘Friend of a friend worked on set with Tom Cruise. He is actually a giant lizard who has to keep his scales moistened so they won’t dry out. FoF says Tom only uses San Pellegrino to do this but is actually a really nice guy who pays him $50 to take all the empty bottles to the recycling plant’. Gradually both sites morphed into a yet crueller version of Heat magazine for people who think they’re too cool for Heat.
During last years Edinburgh Festival I directed the woman who presented the last series of SnogMarryAvoid to a pub toilet. (Just once- this wasn’t a show on the Fringe or anything..)
Has anyone mentioned Vanilla yet?
To describe “Whole Again” as a classic would be something of a stretch, but I do regard it as one of the more superior – and certainly one of the most memorable – hits of its era. The Kittens deliver it with a plaintive sincerity that suits the simple but effective melody and arrangement – there’s a commendable absence of melismatic histrionics. It’s a good example of a singer’s technical limitations working to their song’s advantage.
What really elevates this track is its classy chorus, where reverb-drenched keyboards and layered, rich yet gentle harmonies combine for an enjoyably gospelly effect. I take the point that in this and other respects the song draws from “Never Ever”, but the effect is more understated here and that’s what I like about it. (I’ll concede that the spoken middle 8 is a bit ham-fisted, though.)
In conclusion, this is catchy and well-crafted old-school pop of a type that was already becoming rare by 2001 and, sadly, is all but extinct nowadays. 7
Completely adored by the girls in my London primary school (I was 12 at the time). Watching the video now, I remember a lot of girls with exactly that kind of hairstyle and croptops – it must have helped the connection perfectly. I don’t even remember their competitors. Might ask around to see if anyone else I went to school with at the time did.
As for the song, almost-classic sums it up. What hampers it are a few will-this-do lyrics: ‘doing what I can’ is the worst, ‘dragging my two feet’ a close second, but they only detract from a perfect tune and warm production. The vocals really do sell it: the empty resignation of ‘you just passed me by’ has this simple percussive impact and the tiny moments of male vocals as it leads into the chorus add an element of surprise you don’t expect in a song this straightforward. Underplaying sometimes works. 7 bordering on 8.